Something Can Change
by Megaroo
Summary: Recovering from a gravity room explosion and stuck in bed, Vegeta starts reading an interesting notebook, and learns a few things.
1. Whether you like it or not

Vegeta was confined to his bed, having blown up the gravity room several days previous and been ordered by Bulma to stay immobile until he healed, under penalty of slow, painful death. Not that she could actually carry out the threat, but, surprisingly enough, he knew his limits and had no qualms about taking a short hiatus from his training. There was just one problem: he was bored out of his mind.

Glancing around the room he was currently occupying, his eyes came to rest on the shelving unit against the wall opposite his bed. Filled with family pictures, keepsakes, and other sentimental knickknacks of little importance to him, there was however one shelf devoted to the storage of a number of old books. Wincing from the effort, Vegeta managed to stand up and make his way across the room. His hand had just rested on the binding of one of the volumes when a voice from the doorway demanded, "And just what do you think you're doing out of bed, mister?"

Trying not to groan, "Have you installed motion sensors in here now?"

"Gotta keep tabs on you somehow," replied the blue-haired heiress with a note of smugness as she surveyed the scene.

"Whatever." Book in hand, he ambled back to his bed, taking great pains not to grimace in her presence. With his luck, her obstinacy in regards to his health would only intensify, and he'd probably end up hooked to a morphine drip. Again. Though, admittedly, he was a tiny bit flattered she tried so hard to take care of him despite his self-destructive, among other things, tendencies.

Bulma watched as the object of her wrath flopped on his back, and finally noticed what it was he'd retrieved from the bookcase. "What are you doing with that?" she asked, pointing.

"I got sick of watching the dust collect on the furniture and decided to find something to read," was the answer he gave, as if it wasn't totally out of character for him to be interested in anything other than kicking a certain someone's ass, much less literature.

"Why... don't I get you something else? You don't want to read that, believe me."

"Why? Is it your secret diary or something?"

"NO! I just... don't think you'd enjoy looking through my old high school English notebook, that's all. It's really boring..." She bit her lip, trying to resist the urge to grab it out of his hands and run. Perhaps she was a scientific genius, but that class had been almost impossible for her to get through, as would be evident if he read any of her writing. God, she'd never hear the end of it. "C'mon, just give it here, I'll get you something good, with blood and guts and everything."

"This will do."

"But--"

"I said, this will do," he repeated more forcefully, indicating that she was in pursuit of a lost cause. Bulma sighed and left the room, muttering something about damned Saiyans and their indomitable curiosity.

Meanwhile, Vegeta smiled in victory, opened to the inside cover of the single subject spiral-bound notebook and read the message scrawled in faded blue ink.

_English_ _Response Journal Volume I _

_Property of Bulma Briefs, most supreme genius of the eleventh grade_ _(and don't you forget it!) _

Underneath which was written neatly in red: _If you're such a genius, then you'll have no problem handing this in on time, correct? You remember this counts for half your final_ _grade._

Blue again: _Yeah, yeah, Mr. Markison, I know._

He smirked a bit and turned the page; she hadn't changed a bit.

One of the first stories, "The Last Judgment" was... interesting. Some serial killer had kicked the dirt after killing nine people, and was then put on trial not by god, but by three dead former judges (god being the witness) who didn't pay much attention to anything said, then sent the guy, Kugler, to hell. Then was the girl's response to the story. She blabbered on about judgment and justice for a while, whether it was one or the other that the man had been condemned to despite his good qualities and the reasons he turned out the way he did.

_Consider, _Mr. Markison wrote, _what it might mean to say that if god can't judge, he can see that justice is done? that in point of fact he does make a "last judgment", that "man belongs to man"? how can that be justice?_

Bulma wrote back, _Ok, so, god knows what's true and everything because he sees all, so even though he understands and forgives Kugler in light of his upbringing, etc., he still recognizes the fact that all the humans want justice and Kugler still needs to pay for what he did. That's why that little court thing was there. God could've just ignored the people and forgiven everyone, but he didn't, he conceded to let the judges do what they wanted, because if he didn't then justice wouldn't really be carried out because he's just being god. Justice is carried out through men, who make all the decisions there, and the fact that he lets them do that is a judgment in itself. Kami really needs to get a life. _

He closed the book. Maybe that story, and the analysis, had hit a bit too close to home for comfort. He'd been controlled by that pink bastard his entire life, emotions beaten out of him till he didn't care if he killed a million people or a million people killed him. Was he going to be stuck like this, condemned, forever? He wasn't going to have the luxury of training with King Kai in the Other World, or other such nonsense, like all the "pure" Z-fighters had. No, he'd be wallowing in the pits of HFIL for eternity, right next to said pink bastard and the pink bastard's pink father. Great future to look forward to.

Sneering, Vegeta tossed the book to the floor, disgusted by how it'd managed to make him think when he'd much rather just concentrate on his training and the androids. A moment later he picked it back up and slid it under his pillow, where it's owner would not dare look for it, and drifted off to sleep. Tomorrow he'd find out more about these human writings, and what the woman didn't know she knew about him.

Bulma and Yamcha sat on the couch watching a movie of Bruce Willis beating up bad guys, their minds only partly concentrating on the action on the screen. The space between the two was not so much filled with tension, more like, an amicable absence of romance. Bulma took a breath and decided to break the veritable silence. "Yamcha?"

The unusual tone in her voice caused him to look over at her. "Yeah?"

"Are you sensing what I'm sensing?"

Surprised, he answered truthfully, "That our relationship has stagnated and is going down the tubes?"

A wry smile crossed her features as she replied, "That's a contradiction in terms, but basically, yeah."

"Yeah."

"Not much we can do about it, is there?"

"Nope."

"So..." she ventured. "Pardon the cliche, but I guess this is goodbye?"

"Looks like it."

"Bye, Yamcha."

"Bye, Bulma." His attention returned to the TV as the FBI helicopter exploded and no one really cared. "I'll go after the movie's over, 'kay?"

"'Kay."

Later that day, after Yamcha had left, Bulma wandered around the house for a while until she found herself in the room of Mr. Royal-pain-in-the-ass himself. He was awake again, nose still in the old notebook. She was about ready to sneak up on him and attempt to grab it out of his hands, but something in the expression on his face stopped her. It seemed almost as if he was thinking about what he read, mulling it over, maybe even seeing if it applied to him. Attributing it to just a trick of the lighting, she stepped up next to him and started to read over that which was making him seem almost contemplative, her response to "A Simple Heart".

_Felicite loves the people she loves no matter what they do. They all had qualities and did stuff that was less than perfect, but she didn't notice any of it and continued to love them. Even though most of the time the people don't love her back, she keeps giving to them without wondering what's in it for her._

_...I think it's difficult for most people to love like that, because for them there would be too much thinking involved. It's easy for Felicite because she doesn't think about it, it's natural for her to be that way. Since she isn't exactly a genius (like yours truly), she doesn't notice when she isn't loved back or is exploited, so loving people despite that is pretty much instinctive._

_...This story is saying that no matter what you do, no matter what kind of great things you accomplish or how many times you save the world, if it's motivated by anything other than love then it's pointless and doesn't mean anything. _

Bulma blushed as she finished scanning the page, embarrassed that the prince had to be reading about her thoughts on love when he obviously didn't know the first thing about any of it. He was so obsessed with getting stronger than Goku and beating the shit out of anyone who crossed his path just to show he could; how could he possibly understand this? "You know, if you want mindless entertainment I can have the TV be brought in here, with some action movies you can make fun of."

Vegeta rolled his eyes in mock annoyance. Good thing she'd interrupted his train of thought--he hadn't liked where it was heading--in regards to his heart, or lack thereof. "This crap is the epitome of mindless entertainment, why would I need more?"

"Why you little... I worked hard in that class, thank you very much! If you're going to be reading through my stuff the least you could do is say something intelligent about it!" She retorted, then cut him off before he could interject another derogatory comment. "I know it made you think, I could tell just by looking at your face. You just want to kill the androids to prove your strength, not because you're, god forbid, trying to protect the earth or anything. Are you starting to realize how incredibly pointless that is? Says so right there, you just read it."

Glaring, he dropped the book at her feet and spat out, "Get lost. And take your stupid book with you."

"No," she replied, retrieving it from the floor and tossing it in his lap. "No. I think you need to finish this. Maybe some of the concepts in here will get through that thick head of yours and make you understand some things." Deep, shaky breath, trying to hold on to some of her anger. "Like how to recognize when someone cares for you, and why."

He watched her as she retreated from the room, and the house, as signified by the slamming door he soon heard. She was wrong, he was sure of it. He would probably never comprehend those concepts so foreign to him, that she could write--and talk--about with such perplexing, human, ease. Placing the book in the drawer of the bedside table, Vegeta eased himself back down to the pillow and nodded off.

Sitting at her desk, pretending to work, Bulma berated herself for what she'd said to Vegeta the day before. "I'm never going to be able to look him in the face again, why'd I have to go and open my big mouth? It's not like he'd know how to react to me just announcing it like that, and of course the chances of him reciprocating my feelings are slim to none, so there's strike two. And _if _he decides to keep reading, then pretty soon he'll get to the part about the meaning of life and his head will probably explode, which would leave a nice mess, considering how big the damn thing is if you include his ego, all of which _I _would have to clean up. Oh, why didn't I burn that stupid book the second I got out for summer break?"

"What book?"

"Aah!" she screamed, jumping out of her chair. "Dad! Don't _do _that to me! I was in the middle of some nice self-belittlement and you scared the crap out of me!"

Dr. Briefs chuckled. "Sorry about that. What's got you so troubled?"

"His Royal Highness got ahold of my eleventh grade English notebook and is actually reading it."

"Oh, yes, Mr. Markison's class, I remember now. Only class that ever gave you a challenge, am I right?"

"Yeah, and now Vege-head is totally engrossed in it."

"Think it'll have an effect on him?" he asked, stirring his coffee and trying not to sound too presumptuous.

"Give me a break, Dad. The man is a complete stonewall, my ramblings at age 17 are not going to change him or make him see anything that's right in front of him unless it's Goku or an android."

"Stop worrying about it so much. He'll warm up to you eventually."

A sharp intake of breath, then in an annoyed tone, "Just how much of my self-deprecation did you hear?"

He sipped his coffee to hide the smile, and ambled out of the office. "Enough, Bulma. Enough."

She put her head down on her desk and sighed. "Life is such a bitch."

Two days later, the Saiyan prince was still banned from the gravity room, and still as bored as he could get. Bulma's notebook was still in the nightstand, untouched since it was put there the day of her little confession. But the white confines of the ceiling did nothing to prevent Vegeta's thoughts from circling around his head, his wondering as to why she wanted him to finish reading it, and why he even gave a damn. "Might as well see what the hell it is she thinks is so damn important in that book..." he grumbled as he reached into the drawer and pulled it out. "I ought to just blast the damn thing, that'd really make her day."

Blue: _The Trial_

_...He knows_ _he's about to bite the dust but the only thing he's afraid of is dying alone without having lived a meaningful life. Because the measure of a person's life depends not only on how much others need you, but also on how much you need others, which is hard for a lot of people to admit. So when Peter ratted on his friend Charles (which served to give the Nazis another person to kill), it wasn't out of animosity, it was because he needed him and depended on him to make his life meaningful. The fact that he was able to admit that and open himself to potential hurt means that he's brave. _

Red: _Does Charles' "philosophy of life" make sense to you? why? why is it so difficult for people to accept? how is this story an "antidote" to what happened in "Displaced Person" ?_

Blue again: _Yes. If you're just living for yourself, then once you kick off no one's going to notice or care. People don't like to accept the fact that they need other people because a) that would mean they're responsible for someone else, which is a formidable thought, and 2) people deny it and trick themselves so they don't have to feel bad about not having anyone. In "The Displaced Person", everyone was working toward their own ends and stepping on people the whole way, and it all ended up going to hell in a handbasket. This story brings it full circle by showing that the key to a meaningful life is linking with, depending on, and helping others._

Red: _And how does this connect with the story, "The Wall"?_

Blue: _In "The Wall", Pablo was in prison and was all prepared to die because he wouldn't tell the bad guys where his friend Ramon was hiding. As he was sitting there he tried to push the other people away, build a wall around himself so that the only person he depended on was himself. He wanted to die hardheaded, with dignity and no attachments to that "sentimental conspiracy" that the others were caught in, and remain strong with no feelings. His philosophy of life differed from Peter's in that he denied there were connections between people. However, when he tried to trick the bad guys and make them look stupid, it ended up that they caught Ramon and Pablo was set free._

_...This ended up proving that people's lives are interconnected (he was just lying to himself), and everyone controls everyone else's life/fate. Everyone's in it together, and no one can just choose what's going to happen to them. So it proves Peter's theory right, that all people depend on and need other people, and it's impossible for one person to just separate themself from everyone else, it's just not gonna happen._

Bulma heard pages rustling as she walked by Vegeta's room, and peeked in to see if he'd actually done what she'd said, for once. He was just finishing the last page, she observed, and a minute later he slowly closed the book and set it down.

He'd heard her coming down the hall, in bare feet it seemed, and stop at his door, watching. The woman, though too smart for her own good, also had quite possibly the worst timing in the universe. Pretty soon she'd start harping on him about what he'd learned before he had a chance to properly process the information overload, thereby annoying the hell out of him. Instead, she wordlessly strode to the chair next to his bed and sat, waiting for him to say the first word.

Ten minutes later, she changed her mind. "Well?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Well what?"

"What're you going to do?" she demanded, slightly exasperated as she got to her feet and glared down at him.

Vegeta sat up, then stood to look her straight in the eye as he responded, "I'm going to train until I'm a Super Saiyan so I can defeat those androids."

Although she'd told herself to expect this, Bulma was nonetheless caught off-guard by his usual brusque response, having hoped he'd've been affected just a little bit by the words he just read. Everything about depending on other people, living a meaningful life, needing others, was it all lost on him?

"But why--" she began, but was cut off when his lips met hers in a kiss that would've blown her socks off, had she been wearing any. He took her hands, held her close, and time slowed to a crawl for the both of them.

Moments later they broke apart, she gasping for air, he smiling almost victoriously. As their foreheads touched in an affectionate gesture, he spoke into her ear, "You really should stop asking so many questions, now that I know how to shut you up."

Bulma tried to glare at him as he pulled away and walked in the direction of the gravity room, but ended up smiling instead. She then picked her old high school English notebook up off the bed and carefully replaced it on the shelf.

"Damn Saiyans."


	2. Something can change

_Remembering How_

As she paced the room nervously, her hold on Little Trunks was the only thing that kept Bulma from wringing her hands in anxiety as well. That day, Vegeta was getting his last bit of training in before the Cell Games began, and had barricaded himself in his gravity room, alone with his bruised pride and equally wounded ego. The murderous fury he'd been in when Cell ended up using that same ego and pride against him! He took his indignation out on anyone and everyone. It seemed that, after a relatively brief interlude of contentedness, the Saiya-jin Prince was gradually slipping back into that, temporarily abandoned, heartless egotist persona.

"It's like he's forgotten everything," she muttered, as she plunked into a chair at the kitchen table and glanced at the clock. Ten-fifteen. "I only hope my evil plot doesn't backfire, right into my face, setting my eyebrows ablaze. Oh, he'd get a kick out of that."

"Mom? What's wrong?"

Glancing at her future son that had entered the room during the tail end of her truncated tirade, Bulma put on a cheerful face and answered, "Nothing's wrong, honey, what gave you that idea?"

Pulling up a seat across from her, the lavender-haired half human raised his paternally inherited eyebrow. "You were talking to yourself and mentioned an evil plot. Both are indicative of something being amiss. What is it? Dad?"

Obviously, the X chromosome she'd donated to his genetic makeup had gone towards brains, if the teenager's insightfulness had anything to do with it. That also meant he wasn't going to stop hounding his mother until she gave in and spilled to save her sanity. "I did something that will, in all likelihood, make your father very angry with me if he doesn't understand the reasons behind what I did. It wasn't anything huge, so stop looking at me like that. It's just... There's a lot of history behind it, you don't want to hear me explain the entire thing when you could be doing something more worthwhile."

In a response, Trunks stood, removed his now slumbering younger self from his mother's embrace, left the room for several minutes, and returned alone. He paused to retrieve two cans of soda from the refrigerator, which he set on the table in front of his mother and himself, then took his place again, appearing quite comfortable and resolute. "Okay. I'm listening. Tell."

A sigh escaped her lips. "Fine, fine." She popped the top, took a sip, and began. "Before you were born, Vegeta got himself blown up in the gravity room, and I made him take a week's respite before allowing him to start his masochistic tendencies again. During that time, in order to occupy his mind, he read a notebook I'd written in for English class back in high school, the content of which was all about love and the meaning of life depending on other people, deep stuff like that. I don't know how or why, but somehow, it had a really profound effect on him. It made him think, I suppose, and caused a change in him that I never could've anticipated. It wasn't so apparent on the outside, but inside, in his heart, he was different. He let me love him, for Kami's sake, though it was almost a year after that until we were finally comfortable enough with each other to... Well... Anyhow, eventually you were born, and for a while there... We were happy..."

She trailed off, and Trunks matched her quieting tone, asking, "What happened?"

"Three, four, maybe five months ago. The time before the Androids came was running thin, and he still hadn't achieved Super Saiya-jin. It was hard for him, you know, always failing like he did, whether in real life or just in his mind. He became completely fixated on that goal, concentrated on nothing but that, and pretty much became a different person. The man that'd emerged as a result of the notebook was the real Vegeta, but he pushed it all away again in favor of his evil arrogant powerhouse facade. Then he left for outer space, achieved his goal, and now he's back. And he's still a total jerk."

Upon absorbing this new information, the only thing left to ask was, "So what's your evil plot that's going to make Father incredibly irate?"

"Oh, that. I shouldn't have stalled for so long, and I'm still obviously stressed about it, as you so aptly observed. The gravity room timer goes off at ten-thirty, and he'll head straight to his room as usual, to find what I indiscreetly placed on his pillow in hopes that he lightens up before getting himself killed." She got to her feet and stretched her arms over her head, feeling a few vertebrae crack. "My eleventh-grade English response journal. Volume two."

====

After his rather light workout, Vegeta was still fully awake when he entered his room at twenty to eleven. It was the one he'd originally stayed in, three years ago, and despite his move into another, larger room for some time, this was where he chose to lay his head this past week and a half. He didn't know if he'd be welcomed back into Bulma's double bed should he ask, but that conundrum hadn't even crossed his mind. He didn't really give a damn.

As he glanced at his surroundings as per his usual habit, a foreign object on the pillow caught his eye: a green single-subject spiral-bound notebook.

"Aah, shit. She's trying something."

Knowing better than to incinerate that which he considered nothing but kindling, he reluctantly picked the book up, with the intention of simply tossing it in the hallway. However, a slip of paper managed to fall out from the inside front cover, and he began, albeit reluctantly, to read the short message inscribed on it.

_Vegeta,_

_You will NOT blast this._

_You WILL read it before you go to sleep tonight._

_Please._

_Bulma_

"She just _had_ to say please," he growled, crumpling the paper and tossing it in the wastepaper basket. He then proceeded to flop on the bed, pull himself into an upright, cross-legged position, and open the book. It wasn't like he had anything better to do.

Faded blue ink scrawled a familiar notation: _English response journal volume II, still property of Bulma Briefs, still the supreme genius of the eleventh grade, second semester. Still not a senior yet. _

The red of Mr. Markison's pen: _My caution still holds true. Keep working on this. _

On to the first page. Blue: _"The Guest." Daru has to take the Arab to jail, but doesn't really want to because it's not his responsibility. He took the Arab in the direction of the jail, showed him the way to escape and left him there to make his own choice. Daru had been faced with a moral decision--turn the guy in or let him go--and tried to avoid it by letting the guy choose instead, thereby hoping to stay neutral. However, by doing so he really did make a decision by "not deciding" and shrugging it all off onto the Arab. Daru had treated him well, and the guy chose to turn himself in to repay him and not get him in trouble. He was the responsible one and didn't take the easy way out..._

_The Bell Jar: ...When people are around you and still make you feel all alone, it seems like you're invisible to everyone..._

_...The bell jar is all the expectations and limitations and everything that society puts down in order to control Esther. She can't be herself while it's surrounding her. She feels smothered by everything that's thrown on her and that she's being pressured to do, which is like the air in a bell jar..._

In a habit he'd picked up from Bulma at some point, Vegeta bit his lower lip, then stopped when he realized he was doing the nervous gesture. What if... he had been feeling limited, by his weakness, his past, his life's disposition, everything. Was it human society, galactic society, that was the cause of such restrictions? Or was it... himself?

Shaking his head clear of such a self-destructive thought, he nevertheless continued, musing that he was, most definitely, a glutton for punishment.

Blue_: ...It's the way he expresses himself, like an artist, and makes the audience think, ask questions, and be all profound-like and deep. To the people he's just a passing interest that they don't understand, and they're scared of it, the Unknown; it makes them see things they would rather not see or let invade their happy bubbles. The hunger artist is necessary because society needs to ask "why?" and "how?" otherwise it just stagnates and doesn't grow. People can't live just by surviving, they need excitement and diversity, sweet and sour pork with a side of coleslaw._

Red: _Can you explain why art, real art, is sometimes upsetting, threatening?_

Blue: _Real art makes people think deeply about and question things they'd been certain about, things they used to only take at face value without a second thought, that they accepted. People like routine and tend to dislike change because it makes them feel uncertain and unsure, even if the change is good for them. Art in this way threatens previously established viewpoints and ways of life that people would prefer to hang on to rather than expend the energy to think in a new way. _

"Fine, Bulma, you've made your damn point," he told the ceiling as his head leaned against the wall, taking a short reprieve to incorporate this new cache of knowledge into his psyche. He should never have started reading this notebook. The Cell Games were tomorrow; all he had to do was kill the oversized chameleon, bash out Kakarott's brains, and then his pride would allow him to leave the planet Earth for good. He shouldn't be wasting his time with thoughts such as these. If he wasn't careful he'd start _caring_ again, like he had during that eighteen-month stint of complete insanity. The woman thought he had become who he was meant to be, but she was wrong. Very, very wrong. _This_ was the real Vegeta, rage was the emotion he thrived upon, hate, vengeance, and the promise of fulfilling his destiny the only things on his mind. There was no room for regrets.

No room for second thoughts.

Like the ones he was having right now.

Damn.

_...All of them seem to be desensitized towards death, like it doesn't matter to them that the bodies used to be living human beings, they just think of them as objects. Zapo's parents cared more about how many people he killed than the fact that he felt bad enough about it to say an "Our Father". They thought doing so was being cowardly...._

_...The Tepans belong to a nice little picnic world that's surrounded by the battlefield. In it there's happiness, fulfillment, morality, sense, peace, and all that other stuff that goes along with the golden rule and "man belongs to man" theorem. The battlefield around them is the opposite--dangerous, chaotic, unpredictable, immoral, and out of control, where it's all run by social Darwinism (survival of the fittest). Everyone there wants to somehow get back to the picnic where there's a regard for people's humanity. _

_...The battlefield controls people and makes them go against their hearts, and the picnic threatens its ability to do that. It has to be eliminated, but it keeps going on anyways. The battlefield belongs to the wusses who prefer to take the path of least resistance in life (it takes more to be nice than to hate) and they end up losing everything..._

Well wasn't that just perfect. She had it all wrong. The battlefield was where he belonged. A picnic? All those weaklings were mowed down by rapid machine-gun fire, they did not prevail. Only the strongest survived in that story. Vegeta was like them.

But then... If the strongest were the ones who managed to remain innocent in the face of corruption and war, and the weakest gave in to the lust for power and bloodshed and control, what did that make him?

The basis of his pride was made up of two things: his Saiya-jin heritage and his strength. If, theoretically speaking of course, his very strength served to be a weakness to him, then what did he have left?

A dead legacy.

And no pride.

_...They abuse language (kill it, really) and reduce its use to that of a weapon, for insults. Throughout the entire interaction between the people they don't listen to each other or have any thoughts or feelings about anything anyone else says, so they don't change from the way they were beforehand and don't get anything out of it. They all keep saying the exact same thing like they were just popped out of a cloning machine, they have no personalities, differences, or uniqueness, it's all just generic. And then, their lack of communication results in violence because they can't empathize with anyone else and therefore don't particularly understand that they're dealing with human beings..._

_...In "The Poor," the Signora goes around seemingly to help the poor people when really she only does things for herself, to win brownie points with the Big Guy and a free pass to heaven, not because she's following her (nonexistent) heart. She doesn't like to think about death, trivializing it by not feeling sorry for the dying woman. If there's anything she can do to help besides the bare minimum, she puts it off with talk and doesn't go out of her way if she doesn't have to. She doesn't want to admit the truth, that death exists, because it demands responsibility on her part, and she's afraid of that, of making a commitment to something real. To her, the poor aren't people and blames them for their disposition. She doesn't understand how life is like for them and how hard it is to improve their lives. She works and talks with them without any real love for other people, just for herself..._

"Death," he whispered to himself. Gone was that stern expression of determination etched over every feature. Finally the reality of the situation had permeated his rather thick skull. "I could very well die tomorrow."

And for what? What use would his death be, to him, or to anyone? Then again, who would care? By all means, Cell would, in that he would take great pleasure in ending Vegeta's life. Slowly, painfully. Just as Frieza had. They were the same, after all, Frieza's DNA being incorporated into Cell's genetic structure. It would be like dying at the pink bastard's hands all over again.

And no one would miss him.

No one, except...

He turned to the last page, to finish this pointless task. Then he could toss the infernal notebook out the window and sleep, forgetting every damn thing written in it.

_...In the poem "the lesson of the moth," there are two different philosophies of life, the cockroach's and the moth's. The first was comfortable yet unfulfilling, defined by society and not malleable in relation to individuals. The second is considered abnormal by the first, because it contains a degree of wildness and instinct that the other doesn't have. It is based on the attitude that fulfillment is obtained through one act of meaning, which they were willing to die for in order to procure it. The moths don't live as long as the cockroaches, but they have much more quality and meaning in their short lives..._

Bulma awoke to the sound of her bedroom door being kicked open and slammed against the adjacent wall. An imperious figure loomed over her, and the light emitted when she sat up and turned on the bedside lamp portrayed, in sharp shadows, a stony countenance like no other. "Vegeta?"

The man in question threw something green and rather square onto the mattress where her feet had been a moment ago. "Nice. Try." He seethed, fire blazing in his charcoal eyes.

"What? What do you mean?"

In the same steely voice, "I _won't_ change for you!"

Her reply began as a faint smile, as she reached up to lightly brush his forehead with her fingertips. Then, satisfied that she, not his thoughts, had his full attention, she spoke. "I don't want you to change for _me_."

"Then what the hell was the point of invading my bedroom to put that--" His snarling was silenced as she touched a finger to his lips.

"Vegeta, I want you to change for _you_."

She lay back on the bed and closed her eyes, listening to his slow steps echo on the way back to his bedroom. Her inflammable eyebrows remained intact, and the worried crease between them disappeared. If the world was still here tomorrow night, things might just be different.

====

It was late morning. Kakarott, otherwise known as Son Goku, was deader than disco. The Z fighters and Vegeta approached young Gohan, not knowing whether to scream in celebration or grief. Their quandary was forgotten, however, as familiar energy crackled through the air, creating a whirlwind of dust and dirt focused around the place they had last seen their verdant adversary.

Time slowed for Vegeta as the red beam shot forth from the center of the storm, bypassing him, the humans, the Namek, to plunge into the heart of the only person on this battlefield who gave a damn about him. Whose life _he_, in a sudden change, gave a damn about.

Thousands of thoughts he would later on fail to recall sped through Vegeta's mind, as the lifeless body of his son, Trunks, was knocked to the ground by the force of the energy blast, but one single line stood out among the rest.

_...the attitude that fulfillment is obtained through one act of meaning, which they were willing to die for in order to procure it..._

Trunks was dead. Last night the Saija-jin prince had been fussing over his own fate, whether he himself would survive to see another day. Not one thought had he spared for the one whose life meant ten times more than his. Now what could he do?

What could he do?

_...one act of meaning..._

_...willing to die for...._

Convinced of his newly-decided course of action, Vegeta powered up.

Finis.


End file.
